Tag: devops and digital transformation

Digital transformation has become the new age mantra in this fast-paced tech equipped world. The Cloud has become synonymous with such modern age developments. One would ideally relate the development of the Cloud with digital transformation. However, the current situation could not be further from the truth.

To drive fast-paced changes in today’s business structures there needs to be agile IT architectures in place. These days, more or less every sector is heavily influenced by four technological components, which are social media, mobile technology, analytics, and the cloud.

On the other hand, DevOps refers to speed, quality, and adding value for money. Combine the Cloud to this mix, and you have a winner on your hands. The provisioning of applications and infrastructure is supported heavily by the Cloud, which helps balance out the duo of DevOps and the Cloud for bringing about Digital Transformation.

Successfully Merging the Cloud and DevOps
The sheer beauty of the Cloud’s relationship with DevOps lies in the inclusive relationship they share with each other. Organizations which rely heavily on operations use the Cloud’s computing services to steer their productivity and efficiency speed. Through the means of Cloud computing, developers can gain more control over their components, which often results in shorter waiting time.

By using Cloud’s tools, the process of building and managing codes, services and can eliminate human errors while driving speed and efficiency in the day to day processes. Another aspect where the Cloud comes to the forefront is in developing the ability to generate self-service methods for enabling IT in-frastructure. Since the provisioning time is eliminated, developers can try new things, create new codes, penetrate new markets easily, and launch new products with ease.

DevOps is nothing but the amalgamation of all such services, wherein the developers and the opera-tions teams work together, by using the Cloud as a common platform. By following this approach, they can learn new definitions, as well as develop various strategies at the same time. Through the regular use of Cloud services, developers and operations become more comfortable with the nuances of the Cloud’s languages, allowing them to work seamlessly with each other.

The Multiple Benefits of a DevOps Strategy
In this give and take the relationship between Operations and developers, both parties can benefit immensely. Developers can teach Operations about the various aspects of the code, while Operations can educate developers about the organization’s infrastructure. This way, both parties involved bene-fit tremendously, which translates into the organization’s growth in the long run.

The Cloud propels IT transformation through a means of advanced tools and automation, enabling companies to drive growth and efficiency throughout the different processes within their organiza-tion; it also allows the usage of DevOps processes, with an aim to aid transformation.

At the end of the day, DevOps and the Cloud can aid digital transformation in the following manners:

• Introduce new products within the market, since development, and deployment processes are streamlined to make production releases quick with high efficiency.
• Enhance system maintenance through automation and code induced infrastructure within the Cloud.
• Increased levels of security, which comes as a result of automation.
• Eliminate downtime through the use of continuous cloud-based operations in which developers can apply automation, build stateless applications, and increase business reliability. These processes im-prove the organization’s customer satisfaction in the short run and the long run simultaneously.
• Scalability is the final reason why organizations turn towards using DevOps and the Cloud. Through scalability, organizations can reduce development costs, which are incurred in the development of global IT infrastructure.

To usher in digital transformation there is an inclusive interdependence between the Cloud and DevOps; the two can’t be performed in silos, and need to be applied together to ensure a significant degree of digital transformation.

The concept is rather simple; the more involved developers and operations continue to be with each other, the better would be the results in the future. The higher the interdependence, the stronger would be the outcome of digital transformation within the company’s policies and procedures.

In modern-day dynamic environments, nothing can afford to remain stagnant. Primordial attachments are strikingly against the rules of survival, and Digital Transformation follows the same principle. Transformation serves as the key to success of any company operating in today’s business landscape, wherein, Agile and DevOps are the essential components for a successful journey. Employing Agile and DevOps practices help companies enhance their deployment speed, overall efficiency, and customer experience.

The business world has become increasingly competitive; therefore, companies are seeking to adapt to the contentious marketplace. Leaders are aiming to be aggressive about driving adoption of Agile and DevOps within their organizations.

The aforementioned is in theory; however, the practical situation is varied. While most organizations commit fully to the adoption of both Agile and DevOps practices, many find struggles with critical challenges and thus miss out on the numerous benefits these practices can provide. CA Technologies’ research found that while “75% of respondents recognize that Agile and DevOps approaches drive significant business success when implemented together, only a relatively small proportion consider the consistency, depth, and breadth of usage of these practices to be high.” This is due to the lack of insight into the lucrative prospect of Agile and DevOps deployment where organizations stick to custom and conventional practices, unmoved by any motivation for a challenging venture.

The study also revealed the characteristics of ‘Agility Masters’ (the top 18 percent), which are organizations that have fully adopted the methodologies and aim to deploy nearly all of the right moves to make Agile and DevOps, an essential part of their business. The 60% higher rate of revenue and profit growth of these organizations is thus no surprise to anyone. “They are 2.4 times more likely to grow their businesses at a rate of over 20% than their mainstream counterparts.”

These organizations make all departments of their organization as flexible as possible when responding to changing customer demands, market expectations, regulatory changes and market opportunities. All the more important, these organizations do not focus on technology and process alone but rather on the most extensive use of whatever is available to them.

While applying Agile and DevOps, organizations face challenges such as culture improvement, skills development, improving management, and relieving the pressure. Agile and DevOps practices do not work in an isolated environment, maintained exclusively for them. Instead, the process demands a significant shift in mindset and behavior itself, while applying these strategies to the same work environment.

Therefore, to implement Agile and DevOps optimally, the organizations must focus on the following:

Improving Culture
The improved organizational culture and implementation of agile and DevOps go hand in hand. A poor company environment cannot expect agility to bloom. The organization needs to appreciate and reward collaboration, foster an environment where teamwork and coordination are natural. This will, in turn, result in an environment that holds agility and DevOps at the core of all operations. Revising current processes, making processes transparent, and accumulating valuable feedback could well serve as environment reforming strategies.

Skill Development
By providing proper and timely training to employees, companies are more likely to witness a better deployment of Agile and DevOps across the organization, which according to the research results, could amount to a 60% higher rate of revenue and profit growth in comparison to those that don’t provide active training.

Management Commitment
Supervising the entire Agile and DevOps deployment, and filling in the gaps and blocking the loopholes in the whole web of processes, is also necessary for optimal results. The implementation may result in an excessive workload and thus create confusion among the employees. Having management, committed solely to Agile and DevOps, would no doubt, improve the results.

Pressure Release
Ensuring that employees focus on their best work influences the frequency of strategic work. When employees no longer have to interplay with allied organizational problems such as competition, salary, issues with other employees, etc., they can focus more accurately on the work assigned to them. The organizations must help employees prioritize their work to adopt these methodologies.

Agility and DevOps now seem to be the fundamentals prerequisites of a Modern IT environment. Although they do not entirely solve software development problems, they are essential in accelerating the development. With the help of Agile and DevOps, organizations, through transformed richer engagement of employer, employee, and work, can compete more readily in the IT world.